This paper finds no evidence that speculative activity in futures markets for industrial metals caused higher spot prices in recent years. The empirical analysis focuses on industrial metals with and without futures contracts and is organized around two key themes. First, I show that the...

We implement the human capital CAPM (HCAPM) using the income growth of high income households, rather than aggregate income growth, to proxy the return to human capital (HCRT). We find that identifying the HCRT with the income growth of affluent households, those who are most likely to hold...

This study investigates whether the adverse effects of investors' behavioral biases extend beyond the domain of financial markets to the broad macro-economy. We focus on the risk sharing (or income smoothing) role of financial markets and demonstrate that risk sharing levels are higher in U.S....

We examine whether grit affects individuals' preferences and trading decisions. Grit is the sustained effort toward a goal despite setbacks. It is malleable and distinct from the Big Five personality traits. Using experiments formalized in prospect theory, we find that grit reduces loss...

Using multiple U.S. and European data sources, we show that observed physical attributes are related to participation in financial markets. Specifically, we find that individuals who are relatively tall and of normal weight are more likely to hold stocks in their financial portfolios. We...

We examine whether the decision to participate in the stock market and other related portfolio decisions are influenced by income hedging motives. Economic theory predicts that the market participation propensity should increase as the correlation between income growth and stock market returns...